Snail Lake Regional Park: Grass Lake

Last winter I wrote a post about the central and northern parts of this park and said I would write about the rest of it another day. I included winter photos of the Grass Lake area in some of my early posts with the titles, “Make Time for What is Important”, “Joy and Gratitude”, and “How Cold is Too Cold to Hike?”. Today I will show photos both winter and late summer.

Winter view entering trail from parking lot. Paved trail goes left, I went right.Winter view of the place to sit that is just down the hill from the parking lot.This section was overgrown with tall grass today. In the winter it was fine if you had the right boots.

Today was weather perfection for walking outside: not hot, not cold, and partly cloudy. Some might complain of the humidity, but not I. This day it is up to me to decide how to use these 24 hours. I’m hiking and I’m painting. (and I’m blogging, apparently)

The red line was today’s route. I took the dirt path that goes to the right (west) when the paved trail goes left (east). It is very overgrown. The gray lines are my feeble attempt to include the other trails, most of them are paved.I wasn’t going to take photos today. I have so many of this area and I was planning to have this post be about a different place that I hiked recently. This cockleburr plant jumped out and said, “Look at me!” When I was a kid I would make sculptures by sticking the burrs together.Ugh. August algae. I saw a duck swimming in this and I was sad.After a short stretch of careful steps through the overgrown section, I was able to pick up the pace. I love finding moss and ferns growing from fallen logs. Life finds a way.My mushroom hunter friend says don’t eat this one. It has gills.This bee was having the time of its life. It did not seem to notice or care that I was inches away.Ah, so this must be the property of whoever owns the broadcast towers. Hopefully this trail is public land. I saw no signs indicating otherwise.Raspberry season appears to be done.Some things I worked on today. It was a good day.

Once when I was walking here, someone asked me how to walk all the way around Grass Lake. She said she often drives by on Highway 694 and decided that she would find the trail. Good for you for making time for something you want! Unfortunately, there is no trail that goes all the way around. The water goes too close to the highway on the south edge.

I notice the invasive plants are really taking over this area. If anyone knows of any plans to do something about that, I would love to hear about it.